Ōkimi no mikoto kashikomi yumi no mita sane ka wataramu nageke kono yo o

大君の命畏み弓の共
さ寝かわたらむ長けこの夜を

Roma-ji: Ōkimi no mikoto kashikomi yumi no mita sane ka wataramu nageke kono yo o
English Translation: Our great lord's command
I receive with awe and dread,
and with my bow
must I sleep the whole night through,
this so long and endless night?
Meaning: In awe of my lord's command, must I sleep with only my bow beside me through this long, long night?
Commentary: Book Twenty Frontier Guard Poems 4394

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Poems of the frontier guards sent in rotation to the provinces of Tsukushi in the second month of Tenpyō Shōhō 7, year of the wood sheep."
In awe of my lord's command, must I sleep with my bow through this long night? The poem sings of the loneliness of sleeping on the road without his wife. According to the left note, it closes the poems recorded from the twenty-two presented by Agatainukai no Kiyohito, escort officer of Shimōsa, after the clumsy ones were left out, and the Shimōsa group ends here. The image of sleeping beside a bow instead of a wife lets both the soldier's lot and his solitude show through. Nageke is a dialect form of nagaki.
The author, Ōtomobe no Kohitsuji, was a guard from Sōma District in Shimōsa; nothing more is known of him.

The first line, "ōkimi no," recurs at the opening of the guards' poems.
The second line, "mikoto kashikomi," "in awe of the command," is a set phrase of these poems.
The third line, "yumi no mita," "together with my bow," shows him sleeping beside his bow in place of his wife.
The fourth line, "sane ka wataramu," uses the interrogative ka: must I pass the night sleeping so?
The closing line, "nageke kono yo o," is inverted, adding at the end: this long night.
Author: Ōtomobe no Kohitsuji
Source: Manyoshu
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